


Ever Since

by RuneShark



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Older lesbians, Slow-burning passion, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3477467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuneShark/pseuds/RuneShark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 2x8. Maggie and Jocelyn negotiate a future together in the wake of the town's tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Maggie doesn’t tell Jocelyn where she’s been. It probably wouldn’t do for a barrister just finding her feet again to know about the town’s own private form of justice. In many ways, Maggie knows, she’s more a part of this town than Jocelyn is. Even if some still consider her a blow-in. She’s made Broadchurch her career.

So instead of talking about her own afternoon, she makes sure the conversation turns firmly towards Jocelyn’s work. For once, that’s not hard. It’s wonderful to see Jocelyn’s eyes light up, and to hear her make plans for the future after these years of sulking.

“I have not been sulking!” she insists when Maggie offers her opinion. But her indignation is playful, and Maggie feels no need to apologise. Jocelyn might sulk beautifully. She might brood with a feline pettishness that makes her sulks seem like tragic works of art. But she sulks nonetheless, and they both know it.

There are a lot of things Maggie knows about Jocelyn and some things she still doesn’t. She knows how to bully her for her own good. She knows she alone has special privileges when it comes to asking personal questions. She knows where Jocelyn keeps the sticky-tape and how she drinks her coffee. She knows that Jocelyn is in love with her – if she ever questioned her instincts there her doubts are entirely quelled now. She knows that kissing Jocelyn woke feelings in her she thought she was long past.

She _doesn’t_ know what Jocelyn wants to happen next, though. Or whether she can trust that Jocelyn has thought that far ahead. She doesn’t know where she fits into this renaissance in Jocelyn’s career. A career, after all, that helped Jocelyn to keep herself apart from Broadchurch in the years when Maggie was busily burrowing in. And she doesn’t know how much Jocelyn wants beyond companionship. Do her lips still burn with the ghost of that kiss too?

She’s promised herself that for once she won’t ask questions, however. Not yet. As far as Maggie’s concerned, the ball’s still in Jocelyn’s court and she’s done enough reaching over the net for now.

Instead she makes herself at home and waits. When the silence begins to stretch between them in the darkening evening, she pulls the curtains and heads to the kitchen to make tea for them both. Bits of _The Times_ are strewn on the countertop.  While the kettle boils she corrects a mistake Jocelyn has made in the crossword that’s botched up the whole bottom-right corner.

“The clues are small and my eyesight’s poor,” Jocelyn protests from the doorway.

Maggie’s quietly pleased to find that she’s followed her.

“Your Shakespeare’s worse,” she says, offering no quarter and passing the paper over so Jocelyn can see the right answer.

Jocelyn spares it a skimming glance before she puts it aside and keeps watching Maggie instead. Maggie has always known when Jocelyn is watching her – that ice blue stare is almost a tangible force.

“Mmm. Well, don’t tell them when they come to give me my OBE will you.”

Jocelyn, humble as ever. Tonight she’s smiling more than she has in a long time. For now at least she’s a million miles from the sad woman Maggie had to buck up with gin after the trial. Adding it all up, Maggie figures that this blithe mood either bodes well for her own hopes or for Sharon bloody Bishop’s bloody career.

The kettle billows steam and clicks off demanding her attention.

“Tea or coffee?”

No answer. Maggie turns to see if Jocelyn has left the room and finds that no, she’s still leaning on the doorframe in that typical insouciant manner. But the way her eyes jump guiltily back upwards tells Maggie it wasn’t her tea-making skills that have been the subject of Jocelyn’s attention. It’s almost enough to make Maggie give in and ask Jocelyn to take her to bed this instant.

“Tea or coffee?” she asks again instead, and waves towards the tea caddy in case that will help bring Jocelyn back to the matter at hand. “What do you want?”

It’s the question she’s been bottling up all night, and perhaps that’s why it feels oddly pitched and out of context as she asks it.

Or maybe it’s because she realises the instant she’s said it that Jocelyn’s been waiting for just such an opening. If Jocelyn’s expression was hungry before, now it’s positively predatory.

“What do I want?”

She pushes herself away from the door frame. Maggie watches, tea forgotten, as Jocelyn moves towards her. Her arms are crossed loosely behind her back, her lips pursed – the consummate barrister playing for the jury.

“I want the rain to keep off tomorrow,” she says. “I want more women on the bench. I want to be this happy, this hopeful, for as long as I possibly can. And I want to kiss you again, Maggie.”

By the last word she’s crossed the kitchen and brought them face to face. There’s still a trace of that teasing smile on her lips, but her eyes – those eyes like something from a dark fairy tale – are pleading. Maggie waits. Jocelyn raises a cautious hand towards her and once more she feels the brush of a hand against her cheek. Her eyes flutter closed in anticipation of Jocelyn’s mouth on hers again.

But the kiss doesn’t come. Instead, unexpectedly, Jocelyn whispers a cautious question.

“What about you? What do _you_ want?”

There’s something almost chivalrous in the way Jocelyn is holding herself apart, barely touching her with the very tips of her fingers yet apparently not quite able pull away. Maggie thinks briefly about returning like for like and making a teasing little speech of her own. But in truth, there’s only one thing she wants to say.

“You. I want you, Jocelyn.”

It’s a tiny thing – a plain, bare statement for two women who make the world turn on their words every day, she thinks. But Jocelyn reacts as though the words had magic power. Her smile is radiant. Maggie wonders very briefly if being looked at in that way, with that transparent adoration, would always have been enough to make her fall in love too, even if Jocelyn hadn’t been beautiful and brilliant and infatuating.

But Jocelyn is beautiful. And Jocelyn is brilliant. And now Jocelyn is kissing her again.

Their first kiss out on the cliffs had been an emphatic beginning to something. They’d lingered together too long, returned to the kiss too often, to deny that. This time, Maggie needs something more. She needs to know if Jocelyn’s passion matches her own. Resting her hands on Jocelyn’s shoulders she lets her thumbs brush against her neck beneath the collar of her shirt. She feels the hand in her hair splay and grasp in immediate response. Emboldened she pulls closer. Then she parts her lips beneath Jocelyn’s mouth and feels her immediately follow suit. The touch of Jocelyn’s tongue against her own is almost more than she can bear. She forgets to be cautious. She forgets to worry about who’s taking the lead or what that means.  She deepens the kiss and dares now to explore how it feels to press her hand to Jocelyn’s back, to touch her waist, her hips, to hold her close. Jocelyn matches her move for move, and Maggie has her answer.

Whatever the future has in store, they’ll face it as lovers.


	2. Chapter 2

Jocelyn has been watching Maggie follow the path of the sun’s light across the room. She doesn’t think Maggie is aware herself that she is doing it. As the light’s changed, she has shifted in her seat. Leant out further over the armrest. Braced her foot on the floor and slid the chair back a little, leaving a ruck in the rug. She moves heedlessly, still chatting or listening, asking about Jocelyn’s plans.

Maggie may be unaware, but Jocelyn notices. She notices how the light glints in her hair, and honeys her skin. Though she can’t see it, she remembers how evening sunlight shows up freckles that have already been darkening all spring. Maggie tans early and easily. Jocelyn knows its fanciful, but she can’t help thinking of the sun deliberately seeking Maggie out, too, and marking her - as if to say: this one is made for the summer; this one belongs to me. Maggie looks right in the sunlight. Jocelyn longs to touch her sun-warmed skin.

When the light fades entirely Jocelyn is half afraid that Maggie will slip out with it. She stops herself from calling out when Maggie makes a move towards the French windows, and is relieved when she simply tugs the curtains closed and disappears into the kitchen. 

Jocelyn stretches and rises to follow. First though, she crosses to where Maggie was just standing and reaches behind the curtain to turn the key firmly in the lock. Then she takes a moment to straighten the room and to gather herself. She decides to leave Maggie’s chair where it is. Perhaps she’ll pioneer some experimental new kind of Feng Shui based on natural light and good conversation. Will the furniture have to be moved by a bossy Good Samaritan for the flow of energy to work, she wonders. Or just by the person you love? She can’t separate the two. Maybe when she’s gone her new school of philosophy will schism over it. 

There’s an unexpectedly bright glow from the kitchen. Jocelyn is still half caught in her playful daydream, and for one wild moment she imagines that Maggie has somehow carried the sunlight with her. But it is only, of course, that Maggie has turned on the overhead light with which Jocelyn herself so seldom bothers. 

Small things like this have been catching Jocelyn off-guard all evening. She finds she likes it. She wants very desperately to start getting used to strange lights and wrinkles in the rugs. 

In the kitchen Maggie has made herself at home. She says something teasing about a crossword. She sets about making tea. Jocelyn feels no shame at all in simply watching her and letting her own thoughts run free. Since she’s decided to seduce Maggie tonight anyway this indulgence seems a very minor act of hedonism. 

The bright light helps her eyes. There are creases in Maggie’s trousers at the backs of her knees, and in her untucked linen shirt. She often looks rather rumpled at the end of an intrepid day of simply being Maggie. Jocelyn finds it endearing. More than endearing, truthfully. There have been a few evenings through the years when she’s been driven to distraction by it. Hot nights when Maggie has sat in Jocelyn’s garden with her shirtsleeves pushed back, loose trousers rolled up to her knees - from paddling or walking across the sand - and left that way through indifference. Jocelyn can never keep from thinking how easy it would be to peel her clothes away entirely when they seem so inessential. 

She realises Maggie has been saying something. It’s a simple question, but when Maggie asks her what she wants Jocelyn finds she can’t wait any more. Keeping the conversation light, she covers the ground between them til they are close enough to touch. The kitchen’s not nearly big enough for Jocelyn to tell Maggie a fraction of the things she wants now that she’s allowed herself to want them. It doesn’t matter. The most important thing is to know what _Maggie_ wants. Declaring one’s love is not the same thing as having it reciprocated. 

_“You. I want you, Jocelyn.”_

Jocelyn kisses her. She kisses her again and again. Maggie kisses her back. Her mouth is fierce and demanding and Jocelyn surrenders. ( _”I want you, Jocelyn.”_ ) She surrenders to her _own _desires and stops trying to hold anything back for fear of overwhelming Maggie. ( _”I want you, Jocelyn.”_ ) Maggie can hold her own.__

__In fact, it is Jocelyn herself who breaks the kiss. She doesn’t mean to. She’s not quite ready to pull away even though she knows there are things to be said. To her own surprise she fumbles and breaks the moment because she is smiling too much. She’d expected to be more nervous. It’s a long time since she’s touched a woman like this. But she isn’t nervous at all. She is tense with desire and happier than she ever remembers feeling. Perhaps there’s simply no room for anything else._ _

__She looks up hoping to communicate this to Maggie and finds that Maggie is grinning too. Or maybe just laughing at Jocelyn. Her face is full of mischief._ _

__“This is going to be fun,” Maggie teases, like a co-conspirator. Like somebody in perfect command of the whole situation and of herself. The liar. Jocelyn’s damned if she’s going to let her get away with that._ _

__Very deliberately, she strokes the back of her hand against Maggie’s cheek.She trails her fingertips along her jaw and then turns her attention to the exposed skin at the neck of her shirt. She has imagined this many times. Maggie’s collar is open wide, like always, exposing the skin there as though daring Jocelyn to take advantage of its vulnerability. (Inevitably, Jocelyn knows, Maggie will have begun the day wearing a scarf. Equally inevitably she will have torn it off unthinkingly in a moment of vexation or boredom, and tied it around the strap of her handbag instead.)_ _

__Maggie holds still beneath her touch. Jocelyn watches her own fingers as they move across her skin._ _

__“I want you desperately,” she confesses to the hollow of Maggie’s throat._ _

__Very deliberately she traces a line from Maggie’s jaw, down her neck, along her clavicle. She’s rewarded when she hears a sharp catch in Maggie’s breath. Jocelyn tries it again. Sure enough, Maggie’s breathing shifts and her smile falters. Jocelyn’s having some difficulty reading exactly the expression on Maggie’s face. It’s not one she’s had time to learn, but she takes in everything - the tilt of Maggie’s head, the quick rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers clutch at Jocelyn’s waist. Well, she’s not going to win a Nobel prize for deciphering that._ _

__Stealthily, Jocelyn slips her other hand under Maggie’s untucked shirt. Her fingers brush the skin of Maggie’s side. Maggie gasps aloud and pulls herself close against Jocelyn’s body, and Jocelyn pauses to hold the moment. The feeling of Maggie in her arms, and the idea of what it means are too much to take in all at once. She needs to be careful. Apart from anything else, it's indecorous to undress a houseguest in one's kitchen. For some reason, she hears that last thought in Maggie's voice, though Maggie has not spoken. ( _You. I want you, Jocelyn._ ) _ _

__She longs to press a kiss to Maggie's jaw, to nuzzle and taste her skin. And so much more than that. But not here._ _

__“Come upstairs.” she whispers. Then, for the first time all night, Jocelyn feels a trill of doubt. Can she possibly have misread Maggie? "If you want... I mean if..."_ _

__Maggie rolls her eyes and leads the way._ _


End file.
